In September of 2012 I initiated a series of posts that, collectively, I titled “Election 2012: Image World,” in which I addressed the imagistic components of Barack Obama’s second run for the White House. (Premiering as it did in mid-2009, this blog missed covering his first campaign.) Since most of the election-related imagery came in lens-derived form — still photos and videos — this seemed an appropriate subject for critical analysis at this photo-centric blog.
I followed that up with Election 2016: Image World, an equally long series of posts that I kicked off in late July of 2015. I skipped the 2020 election, but I’ve decided to throw my photo-critical hat into the ring once more on this subject, and to do so even earlier this time around. With Nikki Haley’s February 2023 announcement of her candidacy the 2024 campaign officially started. And the imagery that will affect this election has already begun to emerge. So the time is right for Image World: Election 2024.
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Democracy is under attack not just in the United States but in eastern Europe. Russia’s unprovoked, illegal invasion of Ukraine threatens to undermine the stability of not just their immediate neighbors but western Europe as well.
I have tracked Putin’s war daily since it began. I don’t claim to have any relevant expertise, but I have thoughts about it that I’ve decided to post periodically, simply to get them off my chest. This is almost certainly the most thoroughly documented war in history. The visual imagery of the war is widely available and mostly horrific, so I won’t republish it here under the rubric “Eyes on Ukraine.”
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Robert Capa on D-Day: This series of posts began in June 2014 when the distinguished photojournalist J. Ross Baughman, who had contributed an earlier Guest Post on painters using photographs as source material, emailed to ask if I would consider publishing his analyses of Robert Capa’s D-Day negatives and the legend of their subsequent fate. It turned into an ongoing investigation that resulted in the thorough debunking of this myth.
